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Cake day: August 15th, 2023

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  • I agree, research confirms that intra-species communication between animals and plants is real, though the term “communication” often does a lot of heavy-lifting in those studies. And while it’s possible that goats have some built-in pheromone message encoder for transmitting complex ideas, such as “Daaandelion = helth”, which we simply have not yet discovered, it is unlikely. At best, goats can demonstrate to other goats what to eat by example. However, even a solitary goat on a farm, one that has never seen other goats, will instinctively seek out specific plants when it’s deficient in certain nutrients. It doesn’t require a huge leap of faith to assume that this behavior extends to medicinal plants as well.
    In other words, the goat doesn’t know that it needs to eat a certain plant; it feels like it needs to eat a certain plant.
    This principle even applies to humans, as babies will often eat dirt if they have a calcium deficiency. Clearly, they were never taught to do this, neither by adults (hopefully) nor by other babies.











  • This seems to have descended into a debate on “what is consciousness”

    I disagree, while I did go on a tangent there with analyzing ChatGPT capabilities, my ultimate argument was that we shouldn’t even be discussing the consciousness topic at all. When deciding whether Data has AI or natural intelligence we only need to look at the source of his intelligence; it was man-made, therefore any painting Data produces is “AI art”, because Data only has AI, despite having capabilities on par or even exceeding those of a human.

    To be honest, I did take it as being a little condescending, but it doesn’t really matter. All I wish is to have a discussion, and expand our knowledge in the process.


  • Farid@startrek.websitetoRisa@startrek.websiteData, the cultured artist
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    1 year ago

    Humans being made of water is not an essential characteristic that defines their function or purpose, whereas for a lake, being made of water is its defining attribute. On the other hand, the comparison between AI and human intelligence in terms of pattern recognition highlights the similarities in function, not the composition.


  • Farid@startrek.websitetoRisa@startrek.websiteData, the cultured artist
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    1 year ago

    I actually do think that, to a decent extent, I understand what AI is. And while this is a technicality, it really grinds my gears when a GPT model is compared to an autocomplete/predictive text. Yes, they both technically just predict text using statistical models, but it’s like comparing a modern jet to a paper airplane, because they both can fly.

    [ChatGPT] has no idea what its words mean

    Doesn’t it tho? It has an internal model of the world that it constructed by reading and processing tons of text. It knows that an apple is round-ish, comes in certain colors, can be eaten or grow into a tree. That knowledge is very limited due to the model’s inability to experience such things as shape or color; like a blind person knows the description of “red”, but doesn’t actually know what it is.
    Of course, it’s debatable whether what a GPT model does can be considered “understanding”, but then again, we don’t really know what understanding IS, but I would argue it’s extremely close to what a human understanding is, albeit in a limited scope.

    That being said, I think the discussion of how advanced (or not) our modern AI systems are, though interesting, is extraneous to the question at hand. The main question is “what is AI?”. From your comment, I can conclude that your definition of AI relies on the subject’s possession of sentience/consciousness. I think this is a flawed approach because a bee, while undoubtedly possessing rudimentary intelligence, in all likelihood, lacks consciousness. So consciousness should not be a qualifying criteria for an AI. Furthermore, I looked up several dictionaries for definitions of “AI”, and they all boil down to “man-made machines that perform human tasks”, here’s are some:

    • Cambridge Dictionary – “computer technology that allows something to be done in a way that is similar to the way a human would do it”
    • Merriam-Webster – “the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior”.

    In conclusion, intelligence comes in all shapes and sizes; the only thing differentiating natural intelligence from artificial intelligence is the origin, i.e., if it was man-made, it’s artificial. By that definition, perhaps outdated and lacking insight, Data most definitely possesses AI. Not to mention the lack of full-fledged “sentience” as he can’t experience feelings.



  • What is “artificial intelligence” and at which point does it become “natural intelligence”, if at all? Arguably, anything man-made that has any sort of intelligence, no matter how advanced, even if surpassing creator’s intelligence, remains “artificial”. And as you said, Data is an artificial life form, therefore its intelligence is also artificial.